Top 60 Barbara Jordan Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “How do we create a harmonious society out of so many kinds of people? The key is tolerance – the one value that is indispensable in creating community.”

— Barbara Jordan

2. “It is a privilege to serve people, a privilege that must be earned, and once earned, there is an obligation to do something good with it.”

— Barbara Jordan

3. “We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves.”

— Barbara Jordan

4. “A nation is formed by the willingness of each of us to share in the responsibility for upholding the common good.”

— Barbara Jordan

5. “What the people want is very simple – they want an America as good as its promise.”

— Barbara Jordan

6. “Just remember the world is not a playground but a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday but an education. One eternal lesson for us all: to teach us how better we should love.”

— Barbara Jordan

7. “I get from the soil and spirit of Texas the feeling that I, as an individual, can accomplish whatever I want to, and that there are no limits, that you can just keep going, just keep soaring. I like that spirit.”

— Barbara Jordan

8. “Education remains the key to both economic and political empowerment.”

— Barbara Jordan

9. “Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.”

— Barbara Jordan

10. “There is no obstacle in the path of young people who are poor or members of minority groups that hard work and preparation cannot cure.”

— Barbara Jordan

11. “For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and those who violate it.”

— Barbara Jordan

12. “I live a day at a time. Each day I look for a kernel of excitement. In the morning, I say: ‘What is my exciting thing for today?’ Then, I do the day. Don’t ask me about tomorrow.”

— Barbara Jordan

13. “If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority.”

— Barbara Jordan

14. “If youre going to play the game properly, youd better know every rule.”

— Barbara Jordan

15. “One thing is very clear: Illegal immigrants are not entitled to benefits.”

— Barbara Jordan

16. “Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.”

— Barbara Jordan

17. “Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.”

— Barbara Jordan

18. “We have a positive vision of the future founded on the belief that the gap between the promise and reality of America can one day be finally closed. We believe that.”

— Barbara Jordan

19. “We must not become the new puritans and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done.”

— Barbara Jordan

20. “We call ourselves public servants but I’ll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.”

— Barbara Jordan

21. “It is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.”

— Barbara Jordan

22. “The earth is bread we take and eat.”

— Barbara Jordan

23. “Today, I am an inquisitor. I shall not sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.”

— Barbara Jordan

24. “If you are dissatisfied with they way things are, then you have got to resolve to change them.”

— Barbara Jordan

25. “We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community.”

— Barbara Jordan

26. “A good compromise, a good piece of...”

— Barbara Jordan

27. “It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.”

— Barbara Jordan

28. “Americanization means the process of becoming an American. It means civic incorporation, becoming a part of the polity – becoming one of us. But that does not mean conformity. We are more than a melting pot, we are a kaleidoscope, where every turn of history refracts new light on the old promise.”

— Barbara Jordan

29. “A spirit of harmony can only survive if each of us remembers, when bitterness and self-interest seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny.”

— Barbara Jordan

30. “A government is invigorated when each of us is willing to participate in shaping the future of this nation.”

— Barbara Jordan

31. “But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.”

— Barbara Jordan

32. “Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.”

— Barbara Jordan

33. “I believe that women have a capacity for understanding and compassion which a man structurally does not have, does not have it because he cannot have it. He’s just incapable of it.”

— Barbara Jordan

34. “Justice of right is always to take precedence over might.”

— Barbara Jordan

35. “We must exchange the philosophy of excuse – what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.”

— Barbara Jordan

36. “The Supreme Court has always been the last bastion of the protection of our freedoms.”

— Barbara Jordan

37. “I have faith in young people because I know the strongest emotions which prevail are those of love and caring and belief and tolerance.”

— Barbara Jordan

38. “Things which matter cost money, and we’ve got to spend the money if we do not want to have generations of parasites rather than generations of productive citizens.”

— Barbara Jordan

39. “We are a party of innovation. We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.”

— Barbara Jordan

40. “Our concept of governing is derived from our view of people. It is a concept deeply rooted in a set of beliefs firmly etched in the national conscience, of all of us.”

— Barbara Jordan

41. “We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power; that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted.”

— Barbara Jordan

42. “I never wanted to be run of the mill.”

— Barbara Jordan

43. “Let there be no illusions about the difficulty of forming this kind of a national community. It’s tough, difficult, not easy. But a spirit of harmony will survive in America only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny.”

— Barbara Jordan

44. “The imperative is to define what is right and do it.”

— Barbara Jordan

45. “I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in ‘We, the people.’”

— Barbara Jordan

46. “Even as I stand here and admit that we have made mistakes I still believe that as the people of America sit in judgment on each party, they will recognize that our mistakes were mistakes of the heart. They’ll recognize that.”

— Barbara Jordan

47. “I have confidence that we can form this kind of national community.”

— Barbara Jordan

48. “Throughout out history, when people have looked for new ways to solve their problems, and to uphold the principles of this nation, many times they have turned to political parties. They have often turned to the Democratic Party.”

— Barbara Jordan

49. “The citizens of America expect more. They deserve and they want more than a recital of problems.”

— Barbara Jordan

50. “What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance.”

— Barbara Jordan